1.1. Song of the Exposition
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(Ah little recks the laborer,
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How near his work is holding him to God,
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The loving Laborer through space and time.)
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After all not to create only, or found only,
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But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,
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To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free,
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To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire,
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Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate,
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To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead,
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These also are the lessons of our New World;
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While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World!
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Long and long has the grass been growing,
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Long and long has the rain been falling,
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Long has the globe been rolling round.
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Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia,
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Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts,
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That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and AEneas', Odysseus' wanderings,
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Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus,
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Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on jaffa's gate and on
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The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,
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and Italian collections,
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For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain
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Responsive to our summons,
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Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,
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Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,
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She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown,
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I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance,
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I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
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The dame of dames! can I believe then,
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Those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them retain her?
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Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems, old
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associations, magnetize and hold on to her?
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But that she's left them all—and here?
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Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
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I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her,
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The same undying soul of earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's
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Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of her former themes,
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Hidden and cover'd by to-day's, foundation of to-day's,
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Ended, deceas'd through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain,
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Silent the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century-
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Ended for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors, ended
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the primitive call of the muses,
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Calliope's call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead,
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Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the
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Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct,
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The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise,
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Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,
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Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from its
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Arthur vanish'd with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and
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Galahad, all gone, dissolv'd utterly like an exhalation;
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Pass'd! pass'd! for us, forever pass'd, that once so mighty world,
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now void, inanimate, phantom world,
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Embroider'd, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths,
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Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and
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Pass'd to its charnel vault, coffin'd with crown and armor on,
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Blazon'd with Shakspere's purple page,
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And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.
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I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigre, (having it
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is true in her day, although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)
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Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for
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herself, striding through the confusion,
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By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
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Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
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Smiling and pleas'd with palpable intent to stay,
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She's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!
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But hold—don't I forget my manners?
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To introduce the stranger, (what else indeed do I live to chant
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for?) to thee Columbia;
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In liberty's name welcome immortal! clasp hands,
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And ever henceforth sisters dear be both.
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Fear not O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,
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I candidly confess a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,
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And yet the same old human race, the same within, without,
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Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same,
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The same old love, beauty and use the same.
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We do not blame thee elder World, nor really separate ourselves from thee,
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(Would the son separate himself from the father?)
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Looking back on thee, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through
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past ages bending, building,
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We build to ours to-day.
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Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
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Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
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Prouder than Milan's statued, spired cathedral,
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More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
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We plan even now to raise, beyond them all,
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Thy great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb,
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A keep for life for practical invention.
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As in a waking vision,
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E'en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside and in,
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Its manifold ensemble.
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Around a palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
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Earth's modern wonder, history's seven outstripping,
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High rising tier on tier with glass and iron facades,
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Gladdening the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfulest hues,
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Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,
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Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner Freedom,
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The banners of the States and flags of every land,
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A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster.
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Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect human
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Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.
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Not only all the world of works, trade, products,
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But all the workmen of the world here to be represented.
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Here shall you trace in flowing operation,
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In every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civilization,
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Materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if by magic,
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The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field,
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Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and cloth
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You shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all the new ones,
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You shall see the various grains and how flour is made and then
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bread baked by the bakers,
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You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and
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on till they become bullion,
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You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a
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You shall mark in amazement the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,
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shedding the printed leaves steady and fast,
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The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.
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In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the infinite
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In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated—in
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another animals, animal life and development.
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One stately house shall be the music house,
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Others for other arts—learning, the sciences, shall all be here,
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None shall be slighted, none but shall here be honor'd, help'd, exampled.
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(This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and obelisks,
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Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
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Your temple at Olympia.)
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The male and female many laboring not,
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Shall ever here confront the laboring many,
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With precious benefits to both, glory to all,
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To thee America, and thee eternal Muse.
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And here shall ye inhabit powerful Matrons!
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In your vast state vaster than all the old,
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Echoed through long, long centuries to come,
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To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,
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Practical, peaceful life, the people's life, the People themselves,
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Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace—elate, secure in peace.
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Away with themes of war! away with war itself!
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Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of
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blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
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That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for
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lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,
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And in its stead speed industry's campaigns,
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With thy undaunted armies, engineering,
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Thy pennants labor, loosen'd to the breeze,
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Thy bugles sounding loud and clear.
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Away with old romance!
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Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts,
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Away with love-verses sugar'd in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers,
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Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide,
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The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
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With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.
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To you ye reverent sane sisters,
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I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art,
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To exalt the present and the real,
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To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,
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To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled,
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To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig,
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To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,
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For every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too;
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To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut,)
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To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,
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To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
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To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cooking,
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And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.
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I say I bring thee Muse to-day and here,
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All occupations, duties broad and close,
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Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,
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The old, old practical burdens, interests, joys,
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The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,
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The house-comforts, the house itself and all its belongings,
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Food and its preservation, chemistry applied to it,
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Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded man or
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woman, the perfect longeve personality,
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And helps its present life to health and happiness, and shapes its soul,
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For the eternal real life to come.
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With latest connections, works, the inter-transportation of the world,
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Steam-power, the great express lines, gas, petroleum,
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These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable,
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The Pacific railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis and Gothard and
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Hoosac tunnels, the Brooklyn bridge,
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This earth all spann'd with iron rails, with lines of steamships
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threading in every sea,
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Our own rondure, the current globe I bring.
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Thy offspring towering e'er so high, yet higher Thee above all towering,
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With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
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Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
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Thee, ever thee, I sing.
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Thou, also thou, a World,
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With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,
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Rounded by thee in one—one common orbic language,
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One common indivisible destiny for All.
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And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest,
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I here personify and call my themes, to make them pass before ye.
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Behold, America! (and thou, ineffable guest and sister!)
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For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands;
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Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,
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As in procession coming.
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Behold, the sea itself,
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And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships;
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See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the
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See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,
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See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke.
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Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,
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Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
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Wielding all day their axes.
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Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels, thy oarsmen,
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How the ash writhes under those muscular arms!
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There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
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Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swinging their sledges,
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Overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank,
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Like a tumult of laughter.
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Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents,
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Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising,
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See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.
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Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,
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Thy wealthy daughter-states, Eastern and Western,
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The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas,
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Thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, hops,
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Thy barns all fill'd, the endless freight-train and the bulging store-house,
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The grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards,
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Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy gold
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The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.
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All thine O sacred Union!
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Ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines,
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City and State, North, South, item and aggregate,
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We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!
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Protectress absolute, thou! bulwark of all!
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For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)
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Without thee neither all nor each, nor land, home,
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Nor ship, nor mine, nor any here this day secure,
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Nor aught, nor any day secure.
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And thou, the Emblem waving over all!
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Delicate beauty, a word to thee, (it may be salutary,)
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Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so comfortably
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In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee flag,
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Not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of
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But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy splinter'd staff,
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Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast with desperate hands,
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Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long,
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'Mid cannons' thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and yell, and
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rifle-volleys cracking sharp,
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And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risk'd,
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For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp'd in blood,
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For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might'st dally as now
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Many a good man have I seen go under.
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Now here and these and hence in peace, all thine O Flag!
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And here and hence for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!
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And here and hence O Union, all the work and workmen thine!
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None separate from thee—henceforth One only, we and thou,
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(For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal?
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And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to
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While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother,
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We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee;
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Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre—
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it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual!
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Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee!
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Our freedom all in thee! our very lives in thee!
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